“Oh, sight accursed! Shall faithless Troy prevail,

And shall our promise to our people fail?

How vain the word to Menelaus given

By Jove’s great daughter and the queen of heaven,

Beneath his arms that Priam’s towers should fall,

If warring gods for ever guard the wall!

Mars, red with slaughter, aids our hated foes:

Haste, let us arm, and force with force oppose!”

She spoke; Minerva burns to meet the war:

And now heaven’s empress calls her blazing car.

At her command rush forth the steeds divine;

Rich with immortal gold their trappings shine.

Bright Hebe waits; by Hebe, ever young,

The whirling wheels are to the chariot hung.

On the bright axle turns the bidden wheel

Of sounding brass; the polished axle steel.

Eight brazen spokes in radiant order flame;

The circles gold, of uncorrupted frame,

Such as the heavens produce: and round the gold

Two brazen rings of work divine were roll’d.

The bossy naves of sold silver shone;

Braces of gold suspend the moving throne:

The car, behind, an arching figure bore;

The bending concave form’d an arch before.

Silver the beam, the extended yoke was gold,

And golden reins the immortal coursers hold.

Herself, impatient, to the ready car,

The coursers joins, and breathes revenge and war.

Pallas disrobes; her radiant veil untied,

With flowers adorn’d, with art diversified,

(The laboured veil her heavenly fingers wove,)

Flows on the pavement of the court of Jove.

Now heaven’s dread arms her mighty limbs invest,

Jove’s cuirass blazes on her ample breast;

Deck’d in sad triumph for the mournful field,

O’er her broad shoulders hangs his horrid shield,

Dire, black, tremendous! Round the margin roll’d,

A fringe of serpents hissing guards the gold:

Here all the terrors of grim War appear,

Here rages Force, here tremble Flight and Fear,

Here storm’d Contention, and here Fury frown’d,

And the dire orb portentous Gorgon crown’d.

The massy golden helm she next assumes,

That dreadful nods with four o’ershading plumes;

So vast, the broad circumference contains

A hundred armies on a hundred plains.

The goddess thus the imperial car ascends;

Shook by her arm the mighty javelin bends,

Ponderous and huge; that when her fury burns,

Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o’erturns.

Swift at the scourge the ethereal coursers fly,

While the smooth chariot cuts the liquid sky.

Heaven’s gates spontaneous open to the powers,¹⁵⁵

Heaven’s golden gates, kept by the winged Hours;¹⁵⁶

Commission’d in alternate watch they stand,

The sun’s bright portals and the skies command,

Involve in clouds the eternal gates of day,

Or the dark barrier roll with ease away.

The sounding hinges ring on either side

The gloomy volumes, pierced with light, divide.

The chariot mounts, where deep in ambient skies,

Confused, Olympus’ hundred heads arise;

Where far apart the Thunderer fills his throne,

O’er all the gods superior and alone.

There with her snowy hand the queen restrains

The fiery steeds, and thus to Jove complains:

“O sire! can no resentment touch thy soul?

Can Mars rebel, and does no thunder roll?

What lawless rage on yon forbidden plain,

What rash destruction! and what heroes slain!

Venus, and Phoebus with the dreadful bow,

Smile on the slaughter, and enjoy my woe.

Mad, furious power! whose unrelenting mind

No god can govern, and no justice bind.

Say, mighty father! shall we scourge this pride,

And drive from fight the impetuous homicide?”

To whom assenting, thus the Thunderer said:

“Go! and the great Minerva be thy aid.

To tame the monster-god Minerva knows,

And oft afflicts his brutal breast with woes.”

He said; Saturnia, ardent to obey,

Lash’d her white steeds along the aerial way

Swift down the steep of heaven the chariot rolls,

Between the expanded earth and starry poles

Far as a shepherd, from some point on high,¹⁵⁷

O’er the wide main extends his boundless eye,

Through such a space of air, with thundering sound,

At every leap the immortal coursers bound

Troy now they reach’d and touch’d those banks divine,

Where silver Simois and Scamander join

There Juno stopp’d, and (her fair steeds unloosed)

Of air condensed a vapour circumfused

For these, impregnate with celestial dew,

On Simois, brink ambrosial herbage grew.

Thence to relieve the fainting Argive throng,

Smooth as the sailing doves they glide along.

The best and bravest of the Grecian band

(A warlike circle) round Tydides stand.

Such was their look as lions bathed in blood,

Or foaming boars, the terror of the wood

Heaven’s empress mingles with the mortal crowd,

And shouts, in Stentor’s sounding voice, aloud;

Stentor the strong, endued with brazen lungs,¹⁵⁸

Whose throats surpass’d the force of fifty tongues.

“Inglorious Argives! to your race a shame,

And only men in figure and in name!

Once from the walls your timorous foes engaged,

While fierce in war divine Achilles raged;

Now issuing fearless they possess the plain,

Now win the shores, and scarce the seas remain.”

Her speech new fury to their hearts convey’d;

While near Tydides stood the Athenian maid;

The king beside his panting steeds she found,

O’erspent with toil reposing on the ground;

To cool his glowing wound he sat apart,

(The wound inflicted by the Lycian dart.)

Large drops of sweat from all his limbs descend,

Beneath his ponderous shield his sinews bend,

Whose ample belt, that o’er his shoulder lay,

He eased; and wash’d the clotted gore away.

The goddess leaning o’er the bending yoke,

Beside his coursers, thus her silence broke:

“Degenerate prince! and not of Tydeus’ kind,

Whose little body lodged a mighty mind;

Foremost he press’d in glorious toils to share,

And scarce refrain’d when I forbade the war.

Alone, unguarded, once he dared to go,

And feast, incircled by the Theban foe;

There braved, and vanquish’d, many a hardy knight;

Such nerves I gave him, and such force in fight.

Thou too no less hast been my constant care;

Thy hands I arm’d, and sent thee forth to war:

But thee or fear deters, or sloth detains;

No drop of all thy father warms thy veins.”

The chief thus answered mild: “Immortal maid!

I own thy presence, and confess thy aid.

Not fear, thou know’st, withholds me from the plains,

Nor sloth hath seized me, but thy word restrains:

From warring gods thou bad’st me turn my spear,

And Venus only found resistance here.

Hence, goddess! heedful of thy high commands,

Loth I gave way, and warn’d our Argive bands:

For Mars, the homicide, these eyes beheld,

With slaughter red, and raging round the field.”

Then thus Minerva:—“Brave Tydides, hear!

Not Mars himself, nor aught immortal, fear.

Full on the god impel thy foaming horse:

Pallas commands, and Pallas lends thee force.

Rash, furious, blind, from these to those he flies,

And every side of wavering combat tries;

Large promise makes, and breaks the promise made:

Now gives the Grecians, now the Trojans aid.”¹⁵⁹

She said, and to the steeds approaching near,

Drew from his seat the martial charioteer.

The vigorous power the trembling car ascends,

Fierce for revenge; and Diomed attends:

The groaning axle bent beneath the load;

So great a hero, and so great a god.

She snatch’d the reins, she lash’d with all her force,

And full on Mars impelled the foaming horse:

But first, to hide her heavenly visage, spread

Black Orcus’ helmet o’er her radiant head.

Just then gigantic Periphas lay slain,

The strongest warrior of the Ætolian train;

The god, who slew him, leaves his prostrate prize

Stretch’d where he fell, and at Tydides flies.

Now rushing fierce, in equal arms appear

The daring Greek, the dreadful god of war!

Full at the chief, above his courser’s head,

From Mars’s arm the enormous weapon fled:

Pallas opposed her hand, and caused to glance

Far from the car the strong immortal lance.

Then threw the force of Tydeus’ warlike son;

The javelin hiss’d; the goddess urged it on:

Where the broad cincture girt his armour round,

It pierced the god: his groin received the wound.

From the rent skin the warrior tugs again

The smoking steel. Mars bellows with the pain:

Loud as the roar encountering armies yield,

When shouting millions shake the thundering field.

Both armies start, and trembling gaze around;

And earth and heaven re-bellow to the sound.

As vapours blown by Auster’s sultry breath,

Pregnant with plagues, and shedding seeds of death,

Beneath the rage of burning Sirius rise,

Choke the parch’d earth, and blacken all the skies;

In such a cloud the god from combat driven,

High o’er the dusky whirlwind scales the heaven.

Wild with his pain, he sought the bright abodes,

There sullen sat beneath the sire of gods,

Show’d the celestial blood, and with a groan

Thus pour’d his plaints before the immortal throne:

“Can Jove, supine, flagitious facts survey,

And brook the furies of this daring day?

For mortal men celestial powers engage,

And gods on gods exert eternal rage:

From thee, O father! all these ills we bear,

And thy fell daughter with the shield and spear;

Thou gavest that fury to the realms of light,

Pernicious, wild, regardless of the right.

All heaven beside reveres thy sovereign sway,

Thy voice we hear, and thy behests obey:

’Tis hers to offend, and even offending share

Thy breast, thy counsels, thy distinguish’d care:

So boundless she, and thou so partial grown,

Well may we deem the wondrous birth thy own.

Now frantic Diomed, at her command,

Against the immortals lifts his raging hand:

The heavenly Venus first his fury found,

Me next encountering, me he dared to wound;

Vanquish’d I fled; even I, the god of fight,

From mortal madness scarce was saved by flight.

Else hadst thou seen me sink on yonder plain,

Heap’d round, and heaving under loads of slain!

Or pierced with Grecian darts, for ages lie,

Condemn’d to pain, though fated not to die.”

Him thus upbraiding, with a wrathful look

The lord of thunders view’d, and stern bespoke:

“To me, perfidious! this lamenting strain?

Of lawless force shall lawless Mars complain?

Of all the gods who tread the spangled skies,

Thou most unjust, most odious in our eyes!

Inhuman discord is thy dire delight,

The waste of slaughter, and the rage of fight.

No bounds, no law, thy fiery temper quells,

And all thy mother in thy soul rebels.

In vain our threats, in vain our power we use;

She gives the example, and her son pursues.

Yet long the inflicted pangs thou shall not mourn,

Sprung since thou art from Jove, and heavenly-born.

Else, singed with lightning, hadst thou hence been thrown,

Where chain’d on burning rocks the Titans groan.”

Thus he who shakes Olympus with his nod;

Then gave to Paeon’s care the bleeding god.¹⁶⁰

With gentle hand the balm he pour’d around,

And heal’d the immortal flesh, and closed the wound.

As when the fig’s press’d juice, infused in cream,

To curds coagulates the liquid stream,

Sudden the fluids fix the parts combined;

Such, and so soon, the ethereal texture join’d.

Cleansed from the dust and gore, fair Hebe dress’d

His mighty limbs in an immortal vest.

Glorious he sat, in majesty restored,

Fast by the throne of heaven’s superior lord.

Juno and Pallas mount the bless’d abodes,

Their task perform’d, and mix among the gods.